One day, we will stop fencing over the nature of Riker and Troi’s relationship. Today is not that day. Also, the Hellghast are from the Killzone video game.

It’s hard to say, “I’d rather watch a 40-minute anti-abortion allegory than watch this episode,” but I’d mean it. Every time. How many other, actually productive, directions could this thing have gone into?

The Beige and The Bold is available on iTunes, Stitcher, and other podcasting platforms. It updates Monday mornings at 2:00 AM ET / 1:00 CT.

Man, this is a great episode about Picard and Wesley and NOTHING ELSE. My experiences with handed-down wisdom probably aren’t singular, but they aren’t universal either. Ah, being Southern.

*Sigh*

Will Riker continues being a bit disappointing. He’s getting offered commands left and right and episodes like this make him seem not ready at all for them. Not at all. I wonder if there’s another Will Riker around that they keep recommending for commands and the offers keep ending up in this Will Riker’s mailbox or something.

I don’t know if it’s conceited that I want “I live an alternative lifestyle of austere bachelorhood” on a t-shirt.

The Beige and The Bold is available on iTunes, Stitcher, and other podcasting platforms. It updates Monday mornings at 2:00 AM ET / 1:00 CT.

So a long time ago I used to play and write about Magic. I had more money then, which I’m sure is a coincidence. This starts with that Magic: Campaign System I posted. Actually I never posted it here (link to Reddit), but I’ll queue it up for next week.

Long story short, it’s a campaign where teams of three decks use 1 v 1 duels to gain control of planes that are worth points. Damage is tracked from game to game and decks can sit out a game to heal. First team to ten points worth of planes wins.

One of the things I wanted to do for the system–which I have only played once and no person has ever expressed interest in–was to create bonuses which affected games of Magic. The planes themselves do things on the campaign level, but don’t affect gameplay. So I opted to make some macguffins that a team draws from a deck when they win a duel. It’s an actual artifact any member of the team can then use in their deck. First, I’ll throw up a picture of one, then I’ll start going down the checklist of what I wanted them to do and how that worked out. Album link here.

For those of you who don’t keep up with Magic, this is a double-faced card. The left side is the front. The right side is the back (transformed side).

I’m holding onto this “Q is a benign, albeit adversarial, guide for humanity” idea for as long as I can.

Sometime in Season 3 if I remember correctly.

I think I was wrong about the number of Borg episodes in The Next Generation. I think it’s six, including this one. The Borg cast a big shadow over the series though, especially season three. I knock Voyager for running them into the ground, but what could have been a better villain for Voyager? Could you have made anything as iconic as the Borg when Voyager was on the air?

The Beige and The Bold is available on iTunes, Stitcher, and other podcasting platforms. It updates Monday mornings at 2:00 AM ET / 1:00 CT.

(Most) Every Thursday, I make a brief development blog on my card/board game, Dead Parents Dungeon (DPD). It’s a fantasy-themed, light-hearted game about families and dungeons.

Current Progress: Set Skeleton (cont)

A set skeleton is a list of the cards being made and listed by function. The set skeleton for DPD needs certain themes to be present. It doesn’t mean that I need to nail down every card right now, just as long as I have enough cards to do the things I need to do. It’s just another part of trying to get the most out of playtesting before I have to completely rebuild every card after the first playtest.

This week it’s Rumor and Twist! cards, the adversarial cards. The Twist!s I had were flavorful, they didn’t do the work I needed them to do. They need to push cards and weed out parents. I mean, ideally parents would die in the dungeons, but I’m flexible on this point.